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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In what has been termed the ''RIAA's worst nightmare', the Free Software Foundation has announced that it is coming to the aid of the victims of RIAA lawsuits, by establishing an Expert Witness Defense Fund to assist defendants in RIAA cases. The purpose of the fund is 'to help provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA's ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA's attempt to redefine copyright law.' The funds will be used to pay fees and/or expenses of technical expert witnesses, forensic examiners, and other technical consultants assisting individuals named as defendants in non-commercial, peer-to-peer file sharing cases brought by the RIAA, EMI, SONY BMG, Vivendi Universal, and Warner Bros. Records, and their affiliated companies, such as Interscope, Arista, UMG, Fonovisa, Motown, Atlantic, Priority, and others."

Easy to fix. The loser pays the winner the loser's legal fees. If you only spend a small amount then your risk is small. If Grandma sues MegaCorp with a single lawyer and looses then it only costs her twice whatever her lawyer charges. If MegaCorp loses then Grandma gets all of her fees paid as well as whatever damages are awarded.

That's done to an extent already. Legal fee awards in cases are normally capped to "reasonable" levels. When trying to determine what is reasonable, the opposing side's legal fees are considered directly relevant. If I'm asking for 50k in legal fees, you're going to have trouble complaining that my legal fees are unreasonable when you spent 100k on the same case. This was the direct cause of the interesting legal wrangling over whether or not the RIAA's legal billings would be revealed as part of the Foster case -- she was seeking legal fees, and the RIAA was contesting her fees as too high.

I'd much prefer to see it codified in a loser-pays system as you and the GP are suggesting, though.

If Grandma sues MegaCorp with a single lawyer and looses then it only costs her twice whatever her lawyer charges.

Which is still more then many people can afford. I'm somewhat leery of doing anything that makes it harder to use the legal system. And how would your idea account for people whose lawyers take the cases on contingecy?

Perhaps what we need is some sort of public defender type system for people without the resources to defend themselves in civil court. Your idea of 'loser pays' does nothing to help the person facing the RIAA lawsuit if they don't already have the money they need to defend themselves.

Hmm, that sounds great in theory. The problem comes when the better-represented party, rather than the party in the right, wins. Not that I disagree that an organisation pursuing frivolous lawsuits should foot the cost of those lawsuits when they're found wanting for whatever reason, but neither system is perfect.

On the other hand the only trial of multinational-vs-regular folks I could think of, outside the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI etc sphere, was the 'McLibel [mcspotlight.org]' case. In which the defendants won. Despite the litigio

I agree with the sentiment, but what happens in Europe when the losing side was the side that was correct? Does it actually cut down on bad law suits, or does it encourage a larger spending in the hopes of winning the case anyway?

How would one of those being sued in this case come up with the money if they lost? Being innocent of the charges isn't always enough to ensure that one wins the case. All that would do in these cases would be to encourage the RIAA to pay more and represent a larger incentive to settle out of court.

When it comes to the cost of lawyers, often times people with a strong case can gain an attorney on a contingency basis, meaning that they lawyer takes a larger slice of the award in exchange for potentially working for free if they lose the case.

Other times an attorney will do the work pro bono publico, although the practice can at times be shady, as sometimes the attorney will seek an award in addition to what the complainant is asking for anyways.

What I would like to see is for the court expenses be limited to what the less wealthy side can afford, and if the wealthier side wants to spend more, require them to cover the difference whether they win or lose. With the Judge in the case ruling whether the sums of money involved are reasonable.

Frivolous lawsuits are not happening here. There was a brief time where we had (in Denmark) something like RIAA trying to extort people, but quickly people decided to fight back and I haven't heard of any new tries at this (one case made it all the way to court and the defendant won that afair).

I mean, the vast majority of people are flat out guilty and the settlement is giving them an out relatively cheaply.

Please cite the studies that show that this is indeed the case. I could look at the people that settled and make an assertion that is equally valid that the settlements were simply extortion fees paid by people that didn't have the money to pursue a legal case, and not necessarily an admission of guilt.

I have seen claims made by the RIAA in reports of cases that they have made that were simply untenable—that an IP address uniquely identifies an individual, that a person that sent a laptop to be repaired and had the hard drive replaced was intentionally destroying evidence, and that a computer screenshot that shows an IP address is conclusive proof that a person was sharing files (I can construct a screenshot that shows any IP address and make any claim I want by those rules of evidence).

What I have NOT seen is any evidence offered that sharing files in any way hurts the RIAA, its member companies, or even the artists, performers, or composers. How much do radio stations pay to play a single recording and make it available to millions of potential listeners? And how much per song is the RIAA demanding for people that they claim are sharing files? How long will the courts allow the RIAA and its companies to claim damages anywhere near the amounts they are currently claiming? If the damages they claim are intentionally misleading, then isn't this perjury?

The RIAA can make up any "facts" it wants to support their cases and then pull damage amounts from their asses and present them to the courts with a straight face. This is simply ridiculous, and it is my earnest hope that they finally get called on it and be made to pay the piper.

What I would like to see is for the court expenses be limited to what the less wealthy side can afford, and if the wealthier side wants to spend more, require them to cover the difference whether they win or lose.

So when a single mother of 4 who works double shifts at walmart and can barely make ends meet gets sued by the RIAA the court costs become $0 ?

Ya know, my karma will probably get beat all to hell for this, but not all lawyers are bad.

Get charged with a crime you didn't commit and then tell me how you feel about defense attorneys. Get injured by someone whose insurance company refuses to pay for your treatment and tell me how you feel about them.

Do you have a negative opinion of the lawyers working for the FSF? How about the ACLU lawyers fighting for your civil liberties? How about this guy [wikipedia.org] or this guy [wikipedia.org], both of whom were lawyers.

Lawyers represent their clients. You'd be doing better to direct your anger at the RIAA for the lawsuits and not their lawyers.

"Get charged with a crime you didn't commit and then tell me how you feel about defense attorneys."

I can, easily. They stink. Mine rolled over and started pandering to the prosecution until I finally was tired of hearing his whiny ass tell me that my defense would do no good; after 2 months *MY* motions to dismiss, etc. had caused the prosecution to approach me with a plea bargain that was less than 1% of what I had been charged with initially. I imagine I'd still be in prison if I'd bothered to listen t

Rich corp sues single mom. She spends $100k defending herself through a long, pitched legal battle. She finally wins.Meanwhile, the corp has only spent $50k on the baseless accusations, as they get a bulk rate on their worthless experts and they used staff lawyers paid far less than partners (or some associates). After all, they didn't really care if they won *every* case, just some of them.

Anyway, the single mom is exonerated, but she is only paid $50k of her legal fees. The other $50k is her expense.

How would one of those being sued in this case come up with the money if they lost? Being innocent of the charges isn't always enough to ensure that one wins the case. All that would do in these cases would be to encourage the RIAA to pay more and represent a larger incentive to settle out of court.

Have the state pay for everything - every last penny spent on the case. Anything else means that the citizens are not equal before law, which only serves to bring all law into contempt.

"Yes, the evidence establishes that the defendant's IP address was used to download a Britney Spears album on a P2P network. However, it still allows for the possibility that the *person* who downloaded it was a catburglar who snuck in at night without the defendant knowing, downloaded the files, and left. Therefore, IP logs should have no probative value in computer crime cases."

Getting someone to say it costs very little. Getting someone with the right credentials, who is capable of withstanding cross-examination, to say it costs a fair bit more. You need someone assertive enough not to be bullied by either barrister who not only knows the material well (and has qualifications to back that up), but can present it in a way that is understandable by a dozen idiots (or ignorant but intelligent members of the general public if you are incredibly lucky).

I'd like to take this a step further.Losing side pays for everything and owes the defendant the amount initially requested by plaintiff.You want to sue for excessive and crazy amounts? You lose you pay the same.

I agree. Punishment should be done in the interest of society as a whole, not in the interest of one person who was wronged. Correcting the ills that befall the victim is what actual damages are for. Why should a person (or their lawyers) get a windfall because they ran afoul of misfortune or malice?

The FSF needs to remain focused on developing free as in libre software. There's no reasonfor them to get involved in intellectual property disputes of this nature (I specify becauseI could see reason to become involved in software patent IP issues). The last thing the freesoftware community needs is to be identified with people downloading illegally from the pirate'sbay, *nova, etc.

You assume P2P's only use is "illegal downloads"*. BitTorrent is the perfect way to distribute free software, but its very existance is threatened by the record companies' war againsg ANY file sharing. Share a perfectly legal song that its writer/performer WANTS shared (and there are likely more legal than illegal) with the same name as an RIAA song, and you risk a lawsuit. Even naming your software "master of puppets" or "Penny Lane" may get you sued. So the FSF is indeed in the middle of this already.-mcg

There is no legal terminology "making available". That is something the RIAA lawyers made up. They can cite no part of the Copyright Act that refers to it, and they have themselves stopped using it [blogspot.com] in their complaints, realizing it was indefensible.

There is in fact no law against 'downloading' or 'uploading'. There is a law against making copies without authorization. And there is a law against distributing copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by license, lease, or lending without authorization. The RIAA is trying to rewrite the copyright law. Don't help them.

The Free Software Foundation develops the GNU operating system. Anyone who contributes to these project (including myself) signs a copyright assignment form granting the FSF the rights to their code and occasionally the Foundation employs people to work on some of the important parts that no one is doing voluntarily.

And can you imagine fifty lawyers a day, I said fifty lawyers a day, defending against infringement of Alice's Reataurant? They'd think it was a movement! The Alice's Restaraunt Massacree Lawyer movement, and all you have to do is walk in to the judge's chamber, hum a few bars of Alice's Restaraunt and walk out...

-mcgrew

(apologies to Arlo. The RIAA should be apologizing to Arlo's late father Woodie [slashdot.org], whose guitar sported the motto "this machine kills facists").

Will people now associate free software with illegal activities or supporting illegal activities? I know that is not what they are doing they are helping innocent (sometimes) people from getting corn holed by the RIAA. But could the RIAA, Microsoft or other non free software people put a spin on this and say this foundation supports law breaking and if you support this foundation you also support breaking the law? I just say this because sometimes people do not get the full story before making up their mind about software, an organization, business etc.

"supporting illegal activities?"If people were concerned about who's doing illegal activities they may wonder about RIAA's activities against college students.For example, a student at a local college got a nice letter from RIAA to settle with them for $3000 for the 87 songs she "illegally" downloaded, or go to court.Now, if it hurts them tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per each song, why are they willing to settle for a measly $3000?How is that form of extortion legal?

That needs to read "changing the law". FSF needs to get the message out loudly and clearly that they support sane laws and are working to get them.

I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?

Interestingly on-topic. See, laws are only enforceable when the governed allow them to be. People are coming around to the idea that they don't want pot smoking to be a felony, even if they don't want to do it themselves. You yourself are coming out pro-sanity without being pro-lawbreaking. Well, the FSF needs to do the same.

While I believe the RIAA is doing the right thing defending their IP, I must say I applaud the FSF for helping keep the judicial process fair and even. It's high time for this kind of intervention. I respect that the RIAA can't exactly fight full, drawn out battles against everyone, but this kind of abuse of the court system simply isn't justified. Sorry.

Thank you for using the acronym for "imaginary property" rather than pretending that anything that's only in your head bears any resemblance to actual, real, concrete property.

How exactly doesn't intellectual property resemble "real" property? Certainly not legally, certainly not in terms of value and how it's traded, certainly not in terms of how it's earned (i.e. through working for it). So, how do they not resemble? Is it some reincarnation of the outdated "If I ain't able teh feel it, it don't exist" ar

If I steal your piece of real property, you don't have it anymore. If I "steal" your so-called "IP," you still have it.

If you give me your real property, the total value remains constant (because you don't have it anymore). If you give me your "IP," total value doubles because we both have it, and are thus twice as likely to create derivative works. Sharing is synergistic.

Real property is owned in perpetuity. Most types of "IP" expire, or in other words, revert back to their true "owner:" the Public Domain.

"IP" really is "imaginary." Legally speaking, there is no such thing. There are copyrights and patents and trademarks, but they are not similar enough to be spoken about under one umbrella term with any semblence of accuracy!

I pay people to do things that I can't do on my own, or don't want to do. If you ask me to pay you for something that I can easily do myself, you're basically asking for charity.

Precisely. So if you can create music more cheaply than an artist sells it, then you are invited to do so. You would be legitimately competing against the artist, and providing a similar contribution to our culture. If, however, you mean to say you don't need the artist to make a copy for you, then that's false. You still need the a

Look, let me break it down. Many artists just want to be paid as much as they can for creating their work. Creating unlimited copies discourages people from paying the artist. Lack of payment discourages the artist from creating art. Lack of art is not good. If everyone copies artists' works instead of paying for them, then sooner or later, the pool of available artists will dry up, and there will be nothing new to copy.

I'm not sure what you are talking about, here, but it's not art. Maybe it's widgets. Widgets are not art - they are products designed to sell to some perceived or existing market.

Artists don't have to be paid to produce art, they produce it because the want to. Indeed, often because they have to. They have done it since the first cave man chiseled a bear on a cave wall, and they will continue to do it forever.

There have for a long time been people that valued art enough to ensure that the artist were paid for their work, and thus had more time for art instead of having to also perform other work to make a living. This is a good thing. Recently there have been whole corporations that hired artists to produce art works, then made money selling copies. Often huge amounts of money. Many artists got very rich.

Unfortunately, that kind of system also attracts the widget makers. Teams of widget makers often get together and produce something they call "art" (it's not) and make huge sums of money selling copies.

And what's the point in making them? Pretty much no point at all if you want money for them.

Good. If all you're doing it for is money, it's probably not very good anyway. Without all those widgety things crowding the ether, the truly insightful and inspiring art will flourish, enriching us and encouraging other would-be artists.

One supports our culture, the other drains it.

I'd say it's more like "one supports our culture, the other corrupts it."

That is absolutely false, and I'm fairly sure you know it. Or do you actually believe that nobody has ever, or will ever again, create any form of art unless they're compensated monetarily for it?

Naturally not. Not everyone expects to be paid for their art. There will always be people who produce art for free. Just don't expect the same volume, the same time put in, the same attention to detail, the same instruments to be used, the same collaboration opportunities, the same talent pool, the same variety of

Only in terms of popularity. Thus the more demanded art will be produced more. But that isn't really a problem since there is plenty of art production for all art forms, just some will be produced more than others, but still enough to satisfy anyone. Not so with no copyright. With an anaemic, underfunded culture, expensive artwork production will be slim to non-existent.Besides, with copyright, artists have a choice of distribution method. There's noth

Well now, "IP infringement" is not theft. But that is simply because theft is not the same as stealing, something that someone spent all of their mod points burying last time I brought it up. Slashdot wants to make the semantic argument that "the owner is not deprived of anything" (which is not true, but more importantly, totally beside the point), but they don't ever want to hear people actually apply the science of semantics to those statements.Infringement is not theft (just like it's not larceny, robb

Thank you for using the acronym for "imaginary property" rather than pretending that anything that's only in your head bears any resemblance to actual, real, concrete property.

The whole concept of property is imaginary. What's your point? The only reason the idea of property exists at all is because society set up a system of rules to decide what belongs to whom. By the same token, society can decide exactly what can be owned as well.

While on the surface it may seem odd for FSF to come to the aid of P2P defendants, I think what they're really trying to guard against are future frivolous claims that could be made against open source software and the like.

If the RIAA is able to effectively take advantage of non-tech savvy courts, it's not too much of a stretch for other IP related companies to start filing claims, infringement suits, etc. against open source applications that compete with theirs.

Maybe I'm off base, but that's a possible reason for the FSF to be taking this course. It's more of a message to the business community at large that you're not going to have it that easy strong arming the technology world.

They don't want to be in court and they're being bled dry regardless of their guilt or innocence, so yes, I'd say "victim" is about right.But hey, I guess good old fashioned gumption, bootstrap-pulling, and moral fiber are all people need. Maybe there's a culture of victimhood because people are constantly getting fucked over with nothing they're legally allowed to do about it except whine.

I suppose we all get the system we deserve. Unfortunately, I also get the system we deserve. Add me to the victims.

People who are sued by the RIAA ARE VICTIMS of an organization that abuses the justice system for its own gain. Justice is never served in these cases. The RIAA NEVER PROVES WHO DOWNLOADED THE CONTENT!!! So unless you call accidental convictions of guilty people justice, then justice is never served. Besides, the RIAA is asking for obsurd amounts of money for the infringements.

The problem is, by the standards of a civil suit (preponderence of the evidence), the RIAA is able to kick butt on the forensics.

Its sloppy, its crappy, but when you have "Identify user's ip, user name, and the same username used on a bunch of legitimate sites", it becomes hard to contest the evidence sufficiently to establish nonresponsibility.

You mean without equivalent experts on your side to appropriately and properly point out, to a non-technical jury, the giant holes in their evidence.

That's the way I interpret FSF's involvement. They're not arguing innocence or guilt, they're just making sure both sides have appropriate technical representation vs. the ridiculously one-sided "Grandma Jones and her AOL account vs. RIAA's team of electrical engineering PhDs".

You mean without equivalent experts on your side to appropriately and properly point out, to a non-technical jury, the giant holes in their evidence.

The problem is most of these people are guilty. And when they're put on the stand and asked, "did you download this music" they have two choices: tell the truth and admit liability, or lie and commit perjury.

But this would be true whether the FSF were there or not. Like I said before, I don't think FSF is fighting for these people's innocence or guilt, I think they're fighting for fair representation on both sides with regard to technical issues. Letting the RIAA run rough shod over non-technical juries starts setting precedents that could seep out to other areas, namely open source programming vs. IP vultures.

Yes, but there was never really much doubt in anyones eyes whether -that- woman convicted in -that- case was guilty in my eyes at least. And I doubt the FSF thinks she should have gotten off. (The only real dispute there is how high her damages should be - and $220,000 is stupid/absurd/injust no matter how you look at it.)But expert testimony at the right stage about the right point might force the rest of the evidence to become inadmissible, or create justification for a solid countersuit against the RIAA

Yes, the RIAA is trying to modify copyright law a bit to squeeze more money out of music they "own" at the expense of the creator of the music, and while that is a problem, most of the time it is not the issue that comes to the front when individuals are confronted with copyright infringement lawsuits.

The big issue that has come into play is the RIAA's tactics in gathering evidence. Many times an IP address was proxied and the wrong person ends up on trial. The RIAA's biggest misstep comes into play when they search/seize without proof that the questionable internet activity came from the household they are searching.

There have been many trials which have gone very poorly for the individual even though the RIAA gathered evidence at an incorrect location and *happened* to stumble upon something questionable.

Don't get me wrong, it's still great that an individual has more resources when fighting an RIAA lawsuit, but many problems come up not because of the RIAA's loose definition of copyright, but because the individual defending them self doesn't know their rights.

In all honesty, why? Admittedly, the FSF is more of a political organisation than a technical one, but why are they interested in defending file sharers? They should be promoting free software development with that money, not attempting to get people off (the admittedly ridiculous) fines imposed by the US courts the got because they were too lazy and / or tight to go down the record store and pay money for the (admittedly overpriced) music.

I quote "The Free Software Foundation (FSF), established in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs.". Thats computer programs, not MP3z. FFS, people donate money to the FSF for their work, if I had and found out they were spending it on this I'm be pretty miffed.

I'm a card carrying FSF member, and I fully support this sort of behavior on their part. The issue of file sharing is already threatening software freedom - if they can help to make it clear that the RIAA are just jerks trying to abuse the legal system, the RIAA will have less power to try to outlaw software. That's what this is really about - whether software that allows people to share arbitrary data with each other should be considered to be evidence of criminal activity.

I'm an FSF member too (although I don't want to scratch my mini-CD by carrying it around with me;) ) I but I have to wonder if this sort of thing isn't more appropriate for the EFF instead (of which I'm also a member). Don't get me wrong: I'm glad this sort of thing is getting done. I'm just not sure if the division of labor is quite right.

Because the FSF is first and foremost about Freedom, and very much against any kind of DRM-like crap.The RIAA, on the other hand, is one of the primary promoters of DRM.

Their lawsuit circus is mostly for show. One, they use it to create ammo for their lobbyists ("look how many evil people are out there, we're suing in the thousands but we simply can't get them all, we need new laws, give us new laws, btw. how's the wife? how about a nice holiday with her to fix things up again? or a nice willing young lady

Because the FSF is first and foremost about Freedom, and very much against any kind of DRM-like crap.

While that's true, it's totally irrelevant to the central point. The RIAA has evidence of people engaged in an illegal activity. They are taking legal action against those people (or the people they identify). They are protecting their rights, whether you believe they should have those rights or not is not relevant. You can support independent music or buy things without DRM in an effort to drive th

yes but the RIAA trials are creating interesting/dangerous precidents/opinions on IP law, which the FSF does rely upon, as copyright is nessesary to use copyleft. suitable changes/interpretations could render the creation of Free software extremely difficult, if not impossible.

it is very much in their interest to get involved with this before it starts to have direct effect on them, as by then it has gathered inertia and will be that much harder to reverse.

FFS, people donate money to the FSF for their work, if I had and found out they were spending it on this I'm be pretty miffed.

Well, it doesn't sound like you donate to the FSF, so you don't have any right to be miffed. We all benefit from their work. You wouldn't have any reason to be miffed anyway, this is a separate fund created by the FSF and you donate money to.

Why, indeed?Why convict defendants in your posts when they haven't even been through trial?

It ought to be clear from RTFA that the FSF may not have much of a free software culture left to serve if a whole body of cases with twisted re-interpretations of copyright law become established precedent. That impacts redistribution of software ever so much, so they are rightfully against letting the technical misrepresentations themselves to stand irregardless of whether the defendants are innocent or guilty.

Because they are promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs, that's why. They see the connection between the shoddy evidence gathering of the RIAA and the possibility that merely possessing certain software programs will be considered as evidence of infringement.

The FSF has a policy against using proprietary software; it's not as if they are defending the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. Rather, it seems they are concerned, and rightly so, that a judicial precedent may establish the mere possession of file sharing programs as a de facto evidence of guilt, regardless of whether or not any infringement actually occurred.

Think about that for a moment. The whole Web is just one large, distributed, filesharing program. Imagine the consequences if everything was outlawed because of what it could be used for, rather than outlawing the specific act it might be used for. Even though the RIAA cases deal with copyright, it is more of a war on technology than anything else, and it has far-reaching implications for even those who do not infringe copyright. The real problem that the RIAA is fighting is filesharing itself - it could completely supplant them as the arbiter of music; their very survival depends on keeping individuals from sharing music - copyrighted or not - amongst themselves. The RIAA knows very well that once musicians discover publishing via filesharing, their stranglehold on the industry is over.

So what does the RIAA want? That's right - to control your computer, and dictate which software you are allowed to run. That's the only way to protect their content monopoly, and you can bet their going to try any means possible to accomplish it, consumer rights notwithstanding.

While I'm sure the RIAA and friends will try to spin this as the FSF supporting piracy, that is just not the case. This is providing knowledge to the cases. This way someone with a hacked/cracked machine, wireless router or one of the other brazillion different ways that something can happen and gets unfairly brought up on charges can fight back.

Well when the RIAA can spin it that sharing and downloading around 20 songs equals thousands of dollars to be given to them, they can spin anything. When the *IAA can mislead congress to passing the DMCA and similar acts they can spin it. What the FSF needs to do, is to have people running for congress, with some of the people who get elected they will probably have an easy time getting in and if they can stop the next DMCA from getting passed, its a win for freedom. Without some good senators and represent

our children won't be watching cartoons like Captain Planet, which reflects the hippy nature of the 70's. Rather they'll be watching something subtly using themes of the goodness of sharing, and the evils of the RIAA.
"Linus Torvalds with the power of Open Source!"
*cut scene to Linus and a team of ninja penguins stopping a kid from cracking a program and giving him an open source alternative*
"Mark Shuttleworth with the power of Benevolence!"
*cut to Mark in a space shuttle signing a contract to pour money into a new open source development*
"Bram Cohen with the power of File Sharing Protocols!"
*Just show him solving one of his many rubiks cubes. It's awesome enough.*
FSF with the power of Legal Aid!
*Show a personified version of FSF smacking down a court order against an innocent mother*
By their powers combined, they form internet's greatest hero! Captain 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!
Kickass.

The right answer is to starve the beast. As much as I love music, I will not buy another CD as long as the music industry persists in these law suites. I will only buy music when I can buy it directly from the artist, without a music company in the middle and then only from artists that do not support suing their fans.
Nor, will I go out and p2p music, I will simply go without. If artists with contracts with the record labels want to make money from me, they will have to do it the old fashion way. Come

I would like to suggest that this fund auction off "Lunch with Ray Beckerman" once a month. Maybe other celebrities will donate their lunches to the fund as well. That could generate both revenue and keep the fund in the news.

I would think the best way to help the average Joe is to give his average lawyer a set of clearly-defined, well-argued precedents and examples to base the defense on. Having the precedents and example arguments be stronger will help more people in the long run than trying to help everyone at once.

There's no way the fund can help everyone directly; I imagine it will help more people in the long run by carefully choosing its battles and winning them well than by diluting its resources and helping lots of people who, while individually deserving, won't have the same multiplicative effect on the resources spent.

I would think the best way to help the average Joe is to give his average lawyer a set of clearly-defined, well-argued precedents and examples to base the defense on. Having the precedents and example arguments be stronger will help more people in the long run than trying to help everyone at once.
There's no way the fund can help everyone directly; I imagine it will help more people in the long run by carefully choosing its battles and winning them well than by diluting its resources and helping lots of people who, while individually deserving, won't have the same multiplicative effect on the resources spent.

As far as I know, Ray Beckerman volunteered to help the cause. And it is indeed volunteering: he goes well beyond the normal call of duty for his pay/occupation. He pursues his cases with a diligence and excellence that is remarkable.

What about having a disinterested party as the fund adviser?

I understand the need for transparency, but if Ray is willing to undertake the task (and it will no doubt involve some tedious paperwork and such), then that's great. He is in a position to make informed choices, and to use this money to greatest effect.

I frankly don't understand your point (or why anyone modded you up), and if you RTFA you'd see that Ray Beckerman is not the "sole" advisor. "The Fund will be advised by Ray Beckerman, the author of Recording Industry vs. The People, along with a group of selected attorneys acting as advisors"

I also want a VERY interested party to decide where funds should go, and why wouldn't it go wherever it hits the RIAA the hardest? You do realize it is a common law system right? Court decisions are relied on by other courts, meaning that if you hit the RIAA hard, you might knock them out for all future lawsuits.

If the objective is to kill these RIAA lawsuits in the most efficient and effective manner, then why the hell wouldn't I want Ray Beckerman managing it?! Hell - I'm donating BECAUSE Ray is managing it, and being in Canada I don't even get a tax dedcution!

I frankly don't understand your point (or why anyone modded you up), and if you RTFA you'd see that Ray Beckerman is not the "sole" advisor. "The Fund will be advised by Ray Beckerman, the author of Recording Industry vs. The People, along with a group of selected attorneys acting as advisors"
I also want a VERY interested party to decide where funds should go, and why wouldn't it go wherever it hits the RIAA the hardest? You do realize it is a common law system right? Court decisions are relied on by other courts, meaning that if you hit the RIAA hard, you might knock them out for all future lawsuits.
If the objective is to kill these RIAA lawsuits in the most efficient and effective manner, then why the hell wouldn't I want Ray Beckerman managing it?! Hell - I'm donating BECAUSE Ray is managing it, and being in Canada I don't even get a tax dedcution!

Thank you very much, kwandar.

I know most of my fellow Slashdotters don't like it when I say this, but I'm sure the guy who posted the parent post is an RIAA troll. He just joined, this was his first comment, he started out "I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy" (which is always a dead giveaway), and his profile is silent. Plus he made an asinine suggestion which would play right into his employer's -- I mean the RIAA's -- hands.

But hard to do anything about it. You have a complaint - do you have a solution? Who would you suggest if not Mr. Beckerman?

He's passionate about the topic, a lawyer, and has (IMHO) the correct views on the problem.

this money wont go to help the average Joe fighting the RIAA, it will go to whichever Ray thinks will hit the RIAA the hardest

That's called preventative medicine, and is further proof that his heart is in the right place on the issue. If all he wanted was to get paid, he could endlessly represent vanilla RIAA cases until retirement. He's actually trying to solve the problem.

Interesting to me that this post comes from a new member who has never commented before. Methinks I detect an RIAA troll. Any post that starts off "I hate the RIAA as much as the rest of you, but..." is usually highly suspect.

I personally RTFA quite often, but I'm wierd even for a nerd. perhaps the AT (anonymous troll) couldn't RTFA; it's firewalled off at my workplace.

I would think that having their victims get a little ammo might be a nightmare for the RIAA, but I think an even worse nightmare is the fact that neither musicians nor fans need the major labels any more.